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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22624426">GENERATION NOTHING.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilltheDJ/pseuds/KilltheDJ'>KilltheDJ</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Nonbinary Jet Star, The Lobby - Freeform, The Underground</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 08:53:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,213</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22624426</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilltheDJ/pseuds/KilltheDJ</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t call me nothing,” Poison repeated, snarling. He wasn’t nothing. He refused to be nothing. <i>Nothing<i> didn’t escape from Battery City’s laboratories.</i></i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>GENERATION NOTHING.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There’s a difference between a rebel and a revolutionist. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A rebel - </span>
</p>
<p>
  <b>reb·el</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>
    <em>noun</em>
  </b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>
    <em>/ˈrebəl/</em>
  </b>
</p>
<p> </p><ul>
<li><b><em>a person who rises in opposition or armed resistance against an established government or ruler.<br/>
<br/>
</em></b></li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>And a revolutionist, or as the dictionary says, a revolutionary - </p>
<p>
  <b>
    <em>rev·o·lu·tion·ar·y</em>
  </b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>
    <em>adjective</em>
  </b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>
    <em>/ˌrevəˈlo͞oSHəˌnerē/</em>
  </b>
</p>
<p> </p><ul>
<li><b><em>involving or causing a complete or dramatic change.</em></b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>engaged in or promoting political revolution.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>As far as Party Poison cares, he is all of the above. He has to be all of the above, because all of the above is how things change.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Call him a savior, call him a saint, he doesn’t care. What he cares about is that Battery City never forgets his name, and Better Living Industries won’t stand to see the day his heart goes out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Call him an idealist, call him crazy, he still doesn’t care. He can’t care, not about that, not when he has a revolution to run. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It didn’t start like this, of course. Nothing ever starts with the hero rioting against everything he’s ever known. That’s not know it works.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It started with a scared kid with a mop of matted brown hair, holding his little brother close as harsh white lights cast sharp shadows across the windows, and agents with vampiric masks laughed at their fear. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>_</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The day Party Poison knew his destiny was to be a rebel, he was twelve-years-old. He didn’t know what the word ‘Killjoy’ was, and he didn’t know that his would-be famous color poison red even existed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No, he was lying in a dirty white cot, staring up at a white ceiling, praying to a deity he didn’t know the name of yet. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His little brother, the boy destined to be the Kobra Kid, was curled up into his side, nursing the scrapes on his arm that no one had bandaged up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It isn’t much of a story; when he decided that if he was going to do anything with his life, it was fight against the system he was in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was dripping with anger, all of it held close to his heart like a grenade. His forearm stung enough to bring tears to his eyes and the ink was sinking into his veins like a weight, drowning out even the color of his blood.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Back then he didn’t know what the word color even meant. All he knew was that when they poked and prodded him with needles, the blood that spilled out was the same oddity as the striking X that went through the WANTED posters that adorned the walls of his prison.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t know what prison was, either. He knew that this facility felt like nothing more than being dead, and that being dead would be a mercy no one would allow him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he wouldn’t leave Kobra like that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was when he looked down at his brother, who was quietly crying and trying to hide it. If they saw he was crying, they’d take him away again, back to the white laboratories. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If there was anything he wanted to do before he died, it was to make sure that Kobra never cried again. The scientists could smile and drug them all they wanted, but if Poison was going to do anything, it was making sure they never touched his baby fuckin’ brother ever again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And that? That was just the beginning of the very, very long story of the true deaths of the Fabulous Killjoys. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>_</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I need you to be quiet, okay?” Poison murmured to his baby brother, who soon wouldn’t be such a baby. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Soon, Poison wouldn’t be a kid. Soon, he’d know that his name was Party Poison, and no one besides Kobra would know that name that held him down to Battery City like Jesus to a cross. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kobra nodded, wide, scared eyes adorning the dirty babyface he had. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison took a deep breath himself. It was time; it’d been a year since he decided he wanted to become a rebel, and it was finally the day he escaped.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t know it yet, but he’d be the only one escaping that day.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But back then, he was young and dumb and had the confidence to hide all the nerves settling in his stomach. The calm before the storm was upon them, as he gestured Kobra to hide behind him, standing behind the door. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When the Draculoid, as Poison had come to know them, opened the door, Poison was going to slam the door back in its face, but not close it so he could hopefully scramble around while it was disoriented and escape with Kobra.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>From there, he was going to wing it. He didn’t have much faith in his tiny thirteen-year-old arms, but escape was the only thing that kept his heart beating at this point.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because he knew that no matter what they did to him, one day, he would escape. That day was today, and then they’d never be able to touch him again. He’d be untouchable, invincible. On top of the world - and he’d make damn sure everyone knew his name. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His name, not the number that they inked into his arm. His name, not the four-letter, one-syllable thing Kobra whispered to him at night.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That, if anything, is what gives him enough hope to slam that door into the Draculoid when the door clicks open, the sound that kept him up at night for years afterward.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That’s the moment everything goes wrong, that would leave Poison scrambling to find any evidence contrary to what he saw. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he opened the door again, the Draculoid was disoriented as he planned and he was shielding Kobra from the bright lights - and he hadn’t accounted for the fact that there would be more of them, there are more Draculoids, what can he do, what can he do what can he do - </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison’s shaking when he fumbled to get the ray gun out of the down Draculoid’s holster, hoping, hoping, hoping that the other Draculoid’s haven’t caught onto what he’s doing yet and he doesn’t check what setting it’s on before he’s firing wildly at anything that moves and the ricochet is sending him back and his arm hurts and then there are more laserbeams and his burns now, it burns</span>
  <em>
    <span> burns </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>burns </em>
  </b>
  <span class="u">
    <b>
      <em>burns</em>
    </b>
  </span>
  <b>.</b>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then he heard a scream, and everything fell apart as the world slowed down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was Kobra’s scream, it was undoubtedly Kobra’s scream, and even as his arm goes limp Poison knows something is wrong and he fucked up and because of that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>keeps fighting</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Draculoids outnumbered him and an alarm is going off that hurt his ears enough to make him want to crumple to the ground, but Poison keeps shooting with the white ray gun, doesn’t let himself get backed into a corner despite how much fear is coursing through his veins and whenever anyone got near him he kicked and scratched out like a rabid animal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In what he would later look back on as an act of Destroya or the Phoenix Witch, Poison managed to slip past the Draculoids in their confusion. Maybe it was because he was small and dressed in white just them, or maybe it was because he was quick on his feet and was blessed with a miracle.</span>
</p>
<p><span>It didn’t feel like a miracle at the time, because it didn’t feel like anything but I failed, </span><em><span>I failed, </span></em><b><em>I failed</em></b> <span>because he wasn’t holding Kobra’s hand as he took off running down that hallway. He knew he couldn’t look back. If he looked back, if he stopped, he got caught and they would take Kobra away from him for good and - and at least </span><em><span>one</span></em><span> of them needed to get out. </span></p>
<p>
  <b>
    <em>“Keep running!”</em>
  </b>
</p>
<p>
  <span>To this day, Poison doesn’t know if that voice, the one he heard shouting after him in that hallway, was Kobra or some long ghosted lab rat, but he took its advice. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His legs burned. He wasn’t used to running this far or running at all, and he wasn’t taking in enough air let alone expelling it but he wasn’t going to stop running, he wasn’t going to stop because he couldn’t stop, not as he skidded through a different hallway, changing directions, no idea where he was going in the maze of a facility.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe he wasn’t supposed to escape, maybe that’s why he couldn’t figure out where he was going.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But the faster he ran, the more certain he was that no one could catch him. The faster he ran, the more certain he was that he was going to escape.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he knew he’d never be back. Not for Better Living Industries, not for Kobra, not for anyone. It was when he came to that conclusion that a door labeled EXIT jumped out to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was unlocked; that was the last miracle the Witch granted him that day.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When the temperature-controlled weather of Battery City hit his face, he knew that was the first true moment he was the killjoy he’d become: Party Poison. He didn’t know that yet, but it was. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Luckily, the door let out into an alley and not a busy street. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The dumpster was too full and his arms too weak for him to try pushing it in front of the door, so Poison took off running again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keep running, right? Where else did he have to run too? He’d escaped the facility, but not Battery City - </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But not Battery City. That was it! That was it, he needed to get out of the City!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He needed to run toward the looming concrete walls surrounding the outskirts of the City, so he did. Quicker and quicker and pushing himself until he physically collapsed onto the pavement, skinning his knees and his jaw taking a brutal hit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The walls were so close. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison couldn’t make it. He couldn’t drag himself off the ground, he couldn’t lift his head. Everything burned, everything hurt, and he wanted to curl up into a ball but he couldn’t even do that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison passed out there, on the pavement, so close to salvation but so close to Hell. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>_</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he woke up, he wasn’t back with his brother, and he wasn’t back in a lab getting shot full of sedatives to keep him in line. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was in a… He didn’t know what it was called back then, but he knew now: it was a safe house. In Juvee Hall code to make sure he was safe. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The first thing he saw was the dried blood covering his own hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d brought it up to his face just to make sure this was real, that he wasn’t dreaming and that he wasn’t in a simulation. His arm burned when he brought it up but it wasn’t until he saw the blood and then, further down his arm, near his elbow, the bandages. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They weren’t white bandages. They weren’t purely any color, covered in… in… In color, but as far as he knew, it was something that wasn’t white, and he liked that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Poison sat up, the first thing he did was a vow to himself that no one needed to know anything about him and tear off those bandages on his arm. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It burned, </span>
  <em>
    <span>of course,</span>
  </em>
  <span> it burned but he needed to know, he needed to see for himself. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The bandage was covering the ink on his arm. And when the bandage fell onto his lap, all he was mangled, raised red skin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was no ink, not anymore. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was all Poison needed to know, carefully rewrapping the bandages around his forearm with a grin. He had no idea how to wrap a wound, so he probably - definitely - did it wrong, but it was okay because there wasn't any ink on his arm anymore and that meant something, it had to mean something, right?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His surroundings weren’t white; that’s all he cared about when he woke up, but with a chance to look around, maybe he should’ve cared a little bit more. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There were no windows. There were no windows, and the walls looked to all be concrete - covered in the same not-white that his bandage was. Blankets littered the floor and he was on a ratty old couch; the only door he could see was closed, covered in the not-white.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The only light was from a flickering lightbulb above him, and Poison would’ve been freaked out had he not been reassured by the lack of anything white around him. Better Living Industries loved white, loved a greyscale. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Later, he’d come to know that the basement he woke up in was where Dr. Benzedrine let all the escapees the Youngblood’s found rest, and it was only by chance that Poison was alone. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Still, at the time, being alone was as much of a comfort as it was a burden. He was alone - he could think, Better Living Industries never let him stay alone too long.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was alone - Kobra wasn’t with him. Kobra was back at the facility because Poison didn’t save him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The little brother he’d sworn to protect; his baby brother he’d promised would never get hurt, never cry again, wasn’t with him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He failed. He failed and it came back to him, alone, in that basement, and that was the last, and only time, Poison cried. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tragedies would rock his life over the following years, everything would crash down like a tsunami, but the only time he cried was when he remembered his baby brother was still being kept in the all-white cell blocks in Battery fucking City. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison’s face was still tear-stained and snotty when the door opened - he hurriedly rushed to wipe away any evidence of his little breakdown, ignoring the heat in his cheeks and how his nose and face were undoubtedly blotchy red.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The person who came through the door didn’t look happy to be there. Later, he’d become someone Poison trusted with both his life and his death, but then he was just a stranger, someone sent to check-up on him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Where am I?” was the first thing out of Poison’s mouth, snappy and every part who he wanted to be. He was no longer that four-letter name, that number. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now he was nameless. And he’d like to keep it that way, until the story of how Party Poison came to be, of course.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The person rolled his eyes, opting to stay in the doorway rather than try to rummage over all the blankets and trash littering the ground. “Somewhere safe. Don’t worry, kid-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not a kid!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How old are you?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How old are </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Poison snapped back, crossing his arms and ignoring how digging his thumb into his forearm was not a good idea. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fourteen, what does it matter? I’m trying to help you,” the person, later known as Fun Ghoul, glared. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fourteen, ha! It was almost laughable. Then Poison remembered that he was thirteen and was, in fact, a year younger. That was not as laughable. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison did not give out his age. “And how do you plan on helping me? By not telling where I am? That’s just going to make me upset, and I will scream!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Scream all you want, get us all caught an’ Bleached, great idea. I told you, you’re safe - isn’t that all that matters? It should be.” Oh, wow, because that was what wide-eyed, naive kid Party Poison needed to hear when talking to the first rebel he ever met.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Though, that advice does haunt him, late at night after the others go to sleep. Being safe is the only thing that should matter. Was Ghoul right, all those years ago?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bleached?” Poison asked, all the snappiness gone. Ghoul could be helpful, Ghoul could tell him things and it occurred to him that maybe he shouldn’t snap at the one person who could help him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ghoul nodded. “Yeah, Bleached. When they take ya ‘way an’ then make sure you barely ‘member your own name, let alone anythin’ about what they’ve done. Speakin’ of names, kid, what’s yours?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was tempting to remind Ghoul that he wasn’t a kid, thank you very much. But Poison refrained, gathering up all the confidence he had to muster one weak grin. “Don’t have a name anymore.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wouldn’t have a name, not for a long time. It was freeing in a way that nothing ever had been before. To be able to say that he was nameless, that he wasn’t a number or a four-letter word… It was like being drunk on his own humanity. His own freedom. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The smile Ghoul gave him - the kindest thing he’d seen yet - said that Ghoul understood, Ghoul knew what it was like. Ghoul did know what it was like, but Poison wouldn’t know that until the day he went back to the City for the first time. “Okay, nameless. What’d’ya want me to call you, then?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh. Oh, Poison hadn’t thought about that. Instead of making any semi-permanent decisions, he said, “What do you call rebels around here?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“‘Round here? We call ‘em Juvee Halls. I’m a Juvee Hall, call me Fun Ghoul. Out in the Desert, there’s Killjoys.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Call it fate or call it Poison’s infatuation with all things color, all things neon that he didn’t quite know he had yet, but… He couldn’t help but latch onto the name. “Killjoy. Call me Killjoy for now.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright, Killjoy,” said Ghoul, and shrugged off the beaming grin Poison was throwing his way. It was so odd not being chained to one name; he liked it. “Let’s go meet your saviors, yeah?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I saved my damn self,” Poison said, absolutely sure in his words. There was no one who was going to rescue him - he did it himself. And… and he failed his full mission, but he did save himself. Now Kobra had to save himself. “You just picked me up off the ground.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, let’s go with that. C’mon, I gotta take ya ta the Doc!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Who?” Poison was not going anywhere. No, of course, he wasn’t, not when he had the option of staying where he was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His decisions were very different when there wasn’t a threat of sedatives. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The Doc; Dr. Benzedrine. He’s the one who saved your ass, not me.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It technically wasn’t Dr. Benzedrine who saved him, not at first. Ghoul was the one who found him, half-dead and bleeding out onto the pavement, who took him back to Dr. Benzedrine and let Benze work his magic. He wouldn’t know that for a few years, though. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If he cared enough to save my life, he can meet me on </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> terms.” At his core, Poison was nothing more than a scared little kid who didn’t know the power he’d one day hold. He was scrambling for any semblance of control in a world that so cruelly made anything consistent bad; he made anything that could bring routine a danger. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ghoul sighed. “I guess, Killjoy. Dab your face off or somethin’, I doubt you wanna be seen like that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Wait, did Ghoul notice…? Oh, right, the blotches made it painfully obvious he was crying, didn’t they? How was he supposed to get rid of those?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The answer was he couldn’t, and he appeared as the blotchy-faced, ratty-haired, lonely kid he was after Ghoul left to go get Benzedrine. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison remembers the scene as Dr. Benzedrine swooping in with all the facts and everything he could ever hope to know, so untouchable that Poison wanted to be like him so badly he damn near followed him around.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What actually happened, was that fifteen-year-old Dr. Benzedrine, barely an experienced Juvee Hall himself, fumbled around and stuttered out rambling answers to all of Poison’s questions.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dr. Benzedrine was an odd Juvee Hall. Always had been, always will be. He was oddly quiet sometimes and overly-talkative others; obsessed with the color purple and Carousels; never knew what the point of his experiments was other than he could.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was so totally who Poison wanted to be that maybe if it wasn’t Benzedrine who had bandaged him up all those years ago, he would never have become the Party Poison that everyone knew.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe he’d still be some nameless Killjoy, wandering around the Lobby and trying to scrape by with pickpocketing and back-alley knife fights. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>_</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was only the street rat picking fights for about two years, ‘till he was fifteen and so tired of fighting for a name he wasn’t going to get, not there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After meeting Fun Ghoul and Dr. Benzedrine, they’d parted ways. Poison didn’t take the conventional route most Juvees did, too confident and cocky in his own abilities to become someone that he rejected any help offered to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t the route he should’ve taken.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>By the time he met Fun Ghoul again, he was still a nameless Killjoy, but he’d found one of his callings. Not the one he was meant for; he felt it in his heart even then that he wasn’t where he belonged, but where else would he go? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Graffiti. Maybe it was because of the sound of shaking spray paint can, maybe it was because the fumes made him forget who he wasn’t when he was working on a piece for too long, maybe it was because the color felt like it was calling to him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d become known for graffiti, but that didn’t make his life any easier. It gave him credibility, a reputation, but it wasn’t the reputation he wanted. None of his pieces ever stayed long enough for anyone to care about them, so why would he care about them?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had to keep moving in life. He had to keep pickpocketing and using the carbons for paint before food and keep himself too busy to think about the terrors that tried to choke him in his sleep from the guilt suffocating him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you now, huh?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That’s the first thing Ghoul says to him upon their second meeting when he stopped Poison’s hand from entering his back pocket, where he kept his wallet. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison glares, crossing his arms with a scowl practiced two years over. “Better than you, that’s what.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe you’re king rat on the streets in another life, Killjoy, but you ain’t nothin’ here.” Ghoul didn’t even sound malicious - he sounded resigned, disappointed maybe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison hated it. It was the worst thing Ghoul could’ve told him; that he was nothing. He wasn’t nothing. He was </span>
  <em>
    <span>someone</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he just didn’t know who yet!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t call me nothin’,” Poison spat, but he didn’t cross his arms. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No, he was still young, still dumb, and eager to prove himself. So he planted his feet and stuck his hand in his pocket, gripping the switchblade like a lifeline. It was a lifeline; it was going to be the thing that got him a name, or so he thought.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ghoul didn’t flinch at the threat. It wasn’t because he didn’t know about the switch or because he wasn’t scared; it was because it was Poison, and even back then, Ghoul saw something in him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Another twisting strand of destiny, waiting for the Fabulous Killjoys to come to be. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Calm down. I ain’t insultin’ ya personally, but ya did try to take my wallet,” said Ghoul, making a show of putting his hands up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was like someone approaching a cornered, feral animal. Poison felt like a cornered, feral animal. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t call me nothing,” Poison repeated, snarling. He wasn’t nothing. He refused to be nothing.</span>
  <em>
    <span> Nothing </span>
  </em>
  <span>didn’t escape from Battery City’s laboratories. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Nothing</span>
  </em>
  <span> didn’t survive this long in the Lobby. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fine,” Ghoul pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes. Oh, the shifting moods of Killjoy and Fun Ghoul had always been a sight to see. “If you take your hands out of your pockets.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison didn’t want to take his hands out of his pockets. He didn’t want to give up the sense of control and protection, the little that he had over his life. It was like giving a part of himself up for no good reason. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Giving up the reputation he’d scratched and clawed at the walls to get out of the gutter of a lab rat. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And yet, maybe Poison wasn’t far enough into his head to lose sense of all reason. He snarled, but took his hands out of his pockets, the switchblade still resting within the confines of his jacket.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re not nothin’,” said Ghoul slowly. Maybe he shouldn’t have, because it would be something that Poison believed for years. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I fuckin’ know that!” Or did he? Poison’s always had trouble trying to discern whether he used to be confident or too scared to admit to himself that he had no idea what he was doing, never had and only would years later.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Whatever, kid. Good to see you ain’t dead.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nothin’ but the apocalypse can kill me, and the apocalypse already passed.” Yeah, he had spunk, if that’s what anyone wanted to call it. Either it was spunk or it was reckless arrogance. It could’ve been the last-ditch efforts of a split conscious trying to validate himself enough to keep the night terrors from haunting him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ghoul rolled his eyes; Juvee Halls saw a lot of cocky new rebels who thought they were all that, that came into the Lobby thinking they could change the world.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Almost all went out in a body bag.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night. Come any closer ta findin’ a name?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No, of course, he wasn’t. Poison hadn’t been who he wanted to be, and he wasn’t going to pick a name until he knew who he was, what he was meant to do. For some time, he’d thought he was destined to be a nameless face drifting in a cloud of ghosts. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At the time, telling Ghoul any of that wasn’t an option. “No,” he said, honestly. It was all he could say. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hope ya come close sometime soon, Killjoy. Try not to steal from these parts’a the Lobby, yeah?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh, Poison damn well knew he shouldn’t steal from the people who slunk around these alleys. It was a bad idea; he’d end up in a switchblade fight. He’d ended up in switchblade fights before, and nothing else had ever matched the sheer high of the adrenaline.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not in a good way, at least. There was a difference between adrenaline and fear. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before Poison could answer, doubtless some sarcastic retort that made him seem more confident than he ever thought he’d feel, Ghoul looked him up and down and nodded. “Hm, yeah. You need a meal or two? You look like it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison had his pride, and his pride said that he didn’t need to go with Ghoul; he was doing fine on his own. Poison also knew that he had to survive, somehow, and he wasn’t doing alright. He was too skinny and getting into those switch fights wasn’t good for him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And with a set of wordless nods, they were off. Poison wasn’t used to walking around in the middle of the street like he owned the place. Ghoul called him the king rat on the streets when it was obviously vice versa, huh?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison would be king rat on the streets, though. He would; he had to be. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was his destiny. It had to be. He had to have a destiny. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>_</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Youngbloods’ base was odd. Poison had never liked it; never liked the people, if he was being honest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dr. Benzedrine was so close to a mad scientist that the line was blurred with the purple chalk he had all over the walls. Mr. Sandman was some weird mix between a killjoy and a Juvee Hall, with all-black attire but hot pink hair. Donnie The Catcher wore too much color to even be considered a Juvee Hell, let alone a Juvee Hall of the Lobby’s leading crew. Horseshoe Crab only knew how to glare and wear stupid little hats. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>You could say that a nameless Killjoy didn’t fit in. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But that was where Fun Ghoul took him - to an old, decrepit storage building. Too old for Battery City to try and fix up, too much of a Neon District monument to tear down. It was perfect for a base. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If you didn’t hate loud creaking noises, random hallways leading to nowhere, staircases with broken steps, and trap doors, at least. And it was safe to say that Poison hated all of those things. The Youngbloods’ base contained them all, and Poison was practically hanging off of Ghoul when they entered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For the first time in two years, he had to lower himself into the way-too-small trap door in part of that broken staircase, pretend not to gag while his hands touched all the grime on the ladder leading twenty feet down, and try not to land in the puddle of slush at the bottom. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He did not successfully accomplish that last one; Poison still remembers his shoes squelching as he tried to walk. That’s why you invest in good boots, kids. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ghoul jumped down after him, avoiding the puddle with practiced ease, laughing at the way Poison was pouting. “Not a fan of the sewers?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s disgusting,” Poison shuddered, grimacing at all the sludge around him. Of course, the entrance to the base of the most regarded crew in the Lobby was in the dirtiest area of the sewer. Of course, it was only natural. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Had Poison already mentioned how much he hated that?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beckoning him forward, Ghoul launched into some spiel about what was going on, the food supplies, how things worked, blah blah blah. Poison had no idea what he was saying because he was too busy trying to avoid the piles of pure disgusting from coating the bottom of his shoes. He just painted these!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yeah, Poison was good at listening when it was about things that didn’t concern him. Totally. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Killjoy? Killjoy, are you even listening to me?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” Poison asked; that was when he stepped into a particularly deep puddle and he loathed that sewer with all of his existence. Even after he would get his boots, he would hate that particular sewer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he would hate the Cavern it let out into; an entire world on its own, part of the Lobby but completely and utterly disconnected from Battery City and Better Living Industries.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even knowing about the rock-filled safe haven was an implied code of silence. And if you didn’t follow it? Well, that wouldn’t be your own problem for too long. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wouldn’t just hate the sludge or the silence code. Also because of the Youngbloods, and the Youngbloods weren’t a fan of him, as well.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In fact, this was about when they started to hate him, and vice versa. Funny how much damage you could inflict in the time it took Poison to eat three cans of canned oranges and one can of dog food. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This is -”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We know,” said Horseshoe Crab, no qualms about cutting Ghoul off as he glared at Poison.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison snarled back; he had his own pride to defend. It was the only thing no one could take from him, and he would nurture that. He had to. “Shut the hell up, I was invited here!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ghoul sighed, his hand gesture falling flat as he nodded toward Poison, then toward the out-of-place stove attached to… something.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Most of the Underground’s semantics eluded Poison. He didn’t know where the power came from, or where they got water or any of that. He was pretty damn sure he wasn’t the only one. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not like it mattered, because he was never going to ask. Instead, he quietly watched as Ghoul threw together something on the rusty stove, pulling ingredients out of seemingly empty drawers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All the while Poison stood there uselessly as the Youngblood named Horseshoe Crab glared at him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you have a problem with me?” Poison snapped, though he already knew the answer to that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before this, the Youngbloods didn’t have much of a problem with him, and he didn’t have much of a problem with them. THey mutually co-existed and stayed out of each other’s way, though Benzedrine did ask for a favor every now and then and Poison was obligated by some blood debt he owed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course I do,” Horseshoe snapped; in hindsight, maybe it was all Poison’s fault. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In hindsight, it wasn’t Poison’s fault that everyone around him thought they could get away with being an entitled jerk just because he didn’t have a name, just because he wasn’t like them. At least, that’s why he thought they all acted like they did. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In hindsight, it wasn’t a good idea to pick a fight while Ghoul was too preoccupied to stop him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And what the hell is that problem you have with me?” He was cocky, he was arrogant; he had his arms crossed, just begging for a fight because he was too young to know that sometimes the best thing you can do is let it drop, to run away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d always been headstrong like that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re gonna get us all killed one day,” Horseshoe had spat at him - literally, physically spat on Poison’s shoes, only to walk over and jam his thumb into Poison’s chest like it made his point. “You’re gonna get us all killed, and you don’t even belong here! You’re a street rat who doesn’t even belong in the streets! All that graffiti you’re oh-so-proud of? You’re not waking anyone up - you’re putting everyone in danger because you don’t know what you’re doing! I guarantee in a month’s time we’re going to see your execution on the news because you’re reckless, you’re naive, too much of your damn namesake to care about letting the rest of us fight the way we fight!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A street rat who didn’t belong in the streets. That line always had stuck with Poison, years after it was told to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And the only way Poison knew how to answer without having to process anything, without having to admit that maybe Horseshoe was right, was with his fists. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So that’s how he answered - with a swift punch to the jaw, and Horseshoe answered with a kick to the ribs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t a fight Poison could win, but one he fought anyway, with metallic blood pooling in his mouth and spilling onto the floor as he clawed and kicked anything he could see. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Too much like his namesake.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His namesake was a type of rebel, wasn’t it? There wasn’t a difference in rebelling - rebelling was fighting against the company and that was exactly what he was doing!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was Horseshoe, the Youngbloods, the Juvee Halls - it was all of them who weren’t fighting! Everyone should see color and if Poison had to splatter it all across the Director’s walls himself, he would. He wasn’t being reckless, he was showing people what they were missing and why they were missing it!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The fistfight he and Horseshoe got into wasn’t why he resented the Youngbloods, and it wasn’t why they resented him, even if people in the corner of the Lobby and the Underground and hell, even the Zones would whisper about it like it was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No, that kind of resentment didn’t come from a fistfight. Not from the fistfight Ghoul broke up by throwing pans at them both, at least.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>_</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“You need to learn how to fight quietly, keep us all from getting killed.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“You don’t belong here.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“There’s nothing you can do to get remembered.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“The world will move on.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“You don’t even have a name.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Is there something wrong with you? That’s ridiculous!”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison was tired of the way the Underground treated him. Maybe he didn’t have a name, maybe he had dreams too large for life, maybe he wasn’t a Juvee Hall in the way he wanted to be.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he would be remembered. It was the ones that told him he was nothing, that told him he wasn’t memorable that led him to what he did. To the reason he had a mutual hatred with the leading crew of the Lobby and everything it entailed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This is a bad idea,” Ghoul had said, leaning in the bathroom doorway as Poison started to apply the gooey red hair dye to his mop of brown hair. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’ll be worth it,” Poison insisted. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know.” Ghoul was the only one who had faith in him. Enough faith in him to walk over and start helping him, taking a handful of the goop. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a tradition that had started back then, something built of trust and smiles and a friendship that couldn’t be broken because Ghoul was helping him dye his hair bright red because Ghoul knew it would be worth it. Or trusted that it would be.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ghoul was the only one who knew what he was capable of, even back then; the only one who was willing to run with a street rat. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>_</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Party Poison was born in the Lobby. The Party Poison everyone knew, the killjoy with a penchant for revolution, he was born when he laced up his boots in an alley, just shy of one of the Underground’s less used entrances, with Fun Ghoul next to him wearing a cocky smirk.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe his attitude was contagious. Maybe it was better to be confident when you were shaking with fear because Poison could see the way Ghoul’s hands were shaking while he was holding a flag. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you ready?” Poison whispered, a grin of his own as he stood tall. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He felt like</span>
  <em>
    <span> someone</span>
  </em>
  <span> now. That someone was him, even if it was a larger than life version of him. Or maybe it was a version of him that didn’t know about the consequences. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ghoul shook his head and muttered “no,” with a smile, shaky and nervous and excited, and held up the flag Poison and he had stayed up all night painting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison’s red hair became a signature of who he was that night; the moment he walked out of that alley, bright red hair and a bright blue jacket, he became Party Poison. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d been thinking about finding a name ever since Horseshoe Crab spat at him. This was him finding his name. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was nothing like starting a riot as a good-bye.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It started off slow - rebels looking at him in confusion as he paraded through the streets, a ray gun loosely in his hand like he didn’t have a care in the world, a flag waving above the both of them. A mutilated, dripping version of the old American flag with a painted spider in the middle. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The wind, Battey-City generated, blew just enough to make it visible, but no one cared. Not until the first Drac patrol saw them, made up of about twenty Dracs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison wanted to cause a scene. He wanted everyone to know he was here, he wasn’t nameless and he was meant to be a rebel, to show everyone the life they were being deprived of. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And when the first laser beam was shot, hitting a Drac in the heart, the Lobby and all its occupants were completely and utterly still. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For about five seconds, until Poison shouted “fuck you!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then the chaos broke out, and it wouldn’t end for another four hours. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It would become known as Riot Night, something born of energy and rock ‘n roll. Poison didn’t remember too much about it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He remembered one of the Dracs got a lucky shot and tore straight through the flag; he remembered because of that he shoved his ray gun back into its holster and made a dash through the Drac’s ranks just to cut the Drac responsible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He remembered watching the fighting spread through the Lobby like an infection, a contagion. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>An outlet for all the violence that the Lobby needed, all the anger that every Juvee Hall shoved down just enough to live under the radar. Every White Fence - the Juvees who weren’t out of hiding yet, the ones who lived their white picket fence lives - came out of hiding. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All because Poison started a riot. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Party Poison, Riot Night Highlight,</span>
  </em>
  <span> they called him for weeks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>None of them knew what happened that night.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t Poison’s fault he ran into Donnie The Catcher when he was trying to sneak up on a squadron of Crows that had just been dispatched; they’d arrived on 16th and Wellesley according to a Drac radio he’d picked up somewhere. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t Poison’s fault the resulting impact startled the Crows into seeing their position. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t Poison’s fault Donnie didn’t run away as quickly as he did. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Donnie didn’t scream when he was shot, when he fell to the ground. No self-respecting rebel would, of course, not when they’d all come to terms with their deaths the moment they decided to be rebels. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was why Poison didn’t notice it when Donnie wasn’t running beside him anymore. By the time he realized, it was too late to go back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There were casualties on Riot Night. Poison had known there would be, somewhere, but it wasn’t something he’d been willing to admit to himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That night was almost also the night Party Poison realized the power he could hold. He started his riot like he wanted to; he had the deaths of every rebel whose soul went to the Witch that night on his hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their blood matched the shade of his hair. Ever since that night, at least. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>_</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re going somewhere, Party Poison.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know I am,” Poison told the rebel - the rebel he would learn to trust, the one named Jet Star.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But when Jet asked, when Poison answered, he was lying. He didn’t know where he was going, not at all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Riot Night had started off with a confident killjoy who his name and by the time he met Jet Star, devolved into ceaseless chaos and flames and blaster fire he didn’t know would ever end.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d lost track of Ghoul sometime, before what happened with Donnie. He didn’t even know what time it was, but he knew that for as many Crows and Dracs as they shot down, even more took their place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jet was crouching behind an old brick building, in the heart of all the chaos, when Poison ran and hid with them. Everyone was an ally when you were running from the same thing they were.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jet seemed to know he was lying, though. Maybe it was all the dirt and ash coating his face, still young and naive but burdened and darker now. Maybe it was the choked way the words came out. “For now you need to get out of here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Leaving after he started all of this seemed like a coward’s way out. Only a coward would run, after all this. Poison didn’t know how out of his control things were. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before he could even try to find a way to articulate that, Jet cut him off, slapping a hand over his mouth - that’s when he heard footsteps.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And when you couldn’t see who was approaching, it was safe to assume everyone was your enemy. Everyone was your enemy unless they were hiding with you.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In an act that Poison still swears was a miracle of the Witch, the footsteps passed without incident, but Jet didn’t take their hand off of Poison’s face regardless. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Look,” Jet hissed, staring directly into Poison’s eyes and watching that spark ignite. “You need to run. I need to run. Something bad is gonna happen, can’t you tell?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something bad already was happening - but that</span>
  <em>
    <span> something bad</span>
  </em>
  <span> was supposed to happen!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jet was right, Poison just didn’t know it yet. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t the two of them who should’ve been running, though.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The final end to Riot Night, for Party Poison at least, was finding Fun Ghoul hidden behind the remnants of a building, holding his mouth as blood slipped between his fingers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>_</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he first got out to the Desert, he was treasured as a hero, for being the one to start Riot Night.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The flag Ghoul had flown proudly had been found and patched up by some scavengers, and it became a symbol of him, of who he wasn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because Party Poison was no hero. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was the first time he realized that he was naive; he was young, and he was dumb.  But killjoys died young, they all did, did it matter?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was the thing. None of it mattered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This was one of the worst graves Poison had ever dug for himself - when he was first a Zonerunner. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he discovered how big the Zones were, when he realized that not everything was like the City he’d lived in his whole life, when he discovered that there was nothing anyone could do for Ghoul’s mouth other than stitch it up and wait as it scarred over.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ghoul didn’t come to the Desert with him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jet did, though. Jet Star, the rebel he barely knew, who he met off-chance during what could be considered his Homecoming Parade. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison had found out that Jet lived in the Zones - knew each and every Zone like the back of their hand, lived there ever since they were a kid. The only reason Jet was in the Lobby on that specific day was to pick up a shipment of food to bring back to a few friends of theirs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As for why Jet even suggested Poison come to the Desert, a few days after everything was said and done, when Ghoul was still stuck on bedrest and confined to a room in Dr. Benzedrine’s stupid Medbay - in the Underground, a place Poison was blacklisted from - Poison didn’t know.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jet simply told him they had a place he could stay for a while if they needed to get away from all the stress from what the Lobby expected of him now. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was that, for a long time. Party Poison, the killjoy to end all killjoys, fading into the background, too afraid to learn what the Zones had to offer beyond partying and music and so much neon it became your blood. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Jet Star, Dust Angel, living their life like the world wasn’t going to crash down on top of them as soon as they let their paranoia drain away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>_</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fun Ghoul came back into Poison’s life kicking and screaming.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quite literally, because the first time Poison saw him after Riot Night was a year later when Poison was driving to some party down in Zone 5 when a dust cloud caught his eye.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That dust cloud turned out to be a firefight, and that firefight had caused a dust cloud because Ghoul had thrown a bomb at the masses of Dracs surrounding him as well as some blond he was back to back with.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> And, naturally, Poison wanted to be at the center of it. Firefights were his home in the same way parties were; they made adrenaline pound through his veins until he couldn’t focus on anything else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Besides, who wanted to focus on how all Poison had ever done in his life was fail, fail, fail? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>To make a long story short, he was not the savior of that firefight. In fact, the only savior that day was the kid Ghoul was fighting with - the one with the dead-center aim and cunning precision.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>You know, the one who, after all the Dracs were dispatched, look at Poison with the same hazel eyes that Poison saw in the mirror. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At the time, it didn’t feel right. It couldn’t feel right, because it corrupted the self-deprecating fantasy in his head that everything was his fault, and that he’d failed his little brother. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had, years ago, but it seemed it didn’t matter anymore. Because Kobra was looking at him, ray gun in hand and dust covering fucked-up bleach-blond hair, grinning like an idiot.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Heard you made a name for yourself, Party Poison,” said Kobra, a mischievous glint to his eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kobra was a different kind of young, dumb and stupid. Always had been, always would be. The young, dumb and stupid that didn’t go away with years spent apart of years in the Desert.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The kind of young, dumb and stupid that went along with a fourteen-year-old, even if that fourteen-year-old had seen far too much death and destruction in his lifetime.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That’s the thing about killjoys; their lives are compacted into something miserable. Everyone who has the guts to come out to the Desert and dare to survive has seen far more than they should, too much trauma to be contained into the City without self-destructing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> Party Poison self-destructed on Riot Night. Battery City had nothing left to offer him. He was a killjoy, and it wasn’t because he’d gone by the name so long he still answered to it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was a killjoy, through and through.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The moment he became a Fabulous Killjoy was when Jet yelled at him for bringing home Ghoul, a ‘feral mutt in his own right’ (said with good intentions, naturally) and a near stranger. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Poison wouldn’t change it for the world. The world would change it for him, though. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>GEN NOTHING is the thing that you want to write but don't know you want to write until you're writing it, and the story tells itself without your say. That being said - this is by far one of my favorite writing styles to work with and I hope you like it! Tell a girl your thoughts?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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